It's Definitely Not My Fault!

The First Accident: One morning, a few years ago, I was driving
my small red Suzuki up to Merapi Mountain. Merapi is a volcanic mountain
located just north of Yogyakarta in Central Java. My father has a Shiitake
mushroom farm at the foot of the mountain. And, lucky me was working for
him as low paid labour with excessive hours (I had to repay the money
he had spent raising me since I was a babe through my pampered adolescent
life in Europe – and that involved a lot of work!). Listening to
the car stereo, wearing my work clothes, which was not much – only
a pair of boots, short jeans and a skimpy top, I felt relaxed and rejuvenated
by the fresh mountain air and the morning sun.

The deep, lush tropical forest started to appear on the side
of the road, what a wonderful day – until I realised that I was
not driving at my usual brisk speed. What was wrong? Well, I was driving
on a narrow road with not enough space to manoeuvre, and there was a guy
on a motorcycle driving at a snail’s pace in front of me. I honked
the horn and waited, but he didn’t show any attempt to move his
motorcycle. I honked the horn again and again, but he didn’t budge.
So, with a devilish grin on my face, I sped up and my bumper hit his motorcycle
from the back and he fell down. I stopped, got out of my car and started
yelling at him.

I’m not really proud of what I did – but jeeze you
should have seen his reaction. There he was, standing up (I made sure
not to cause any ‘major’ physical injury when I hit him) and
quickly assessing the damage to his motorcycle (his back lamp was broken,
not that it had been working anyway). He looked at me and was ready to
pump up his chest to be aggressive toward me while I was already yelling
at him. Poor guy, he was really dumbfounded. And so were the usual local
‘crowds’ that surrounded him and who were ready with their
machetes to execute me, ‘the car owner’. I gave the motorcyclist
some money to fix his lamp after I threatened to take him to a local police
office because of his deliberate act of disturbing the traffic, then I
left.

The Second Accident: On another ill-fated day I was driving my
brother’s car. The road was empty. I was driving carefully in the
correct lane; my speed was under 30 km/hour, when suddenly I saw two motorcycles
driving toward me. The driver of one of the motorcycles was so busy chatting
with his friend that he drove straight into me landing on the hood of
my car. Some onlookers on the side of the street, whose attention was
actually more focused on my cleavage than what had happened, rushed to
the side of my car, slammed the hood and yelled at me: “Stop! Don’t
you dare to run away from this, you *#@^!” I was speechless. Here
I was, hit by a motorcycle and then victimised by angry crowds. Where’s
the logic?

The Third Accident: I remember my father telling me that he had
given some money to a motorcyclist after he had hit my father’s
car, without my father being at fault. My father said: “Well, I
know it wasn’t my fault. But he was a poor man; his motorcycle was
broken after the accident. I obviously had more money than him, so I gave
him some money to fix his motorcycle.” No wonder my father never
got rich.

The Fourth Accident (the last one, I promise): My little brother
recently was finally able to buy a car – his first car. Last Idul
Fitri, he drove his new car from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. It was his first
‘pulang kampung’ experience in his own car. He was very proud
of it; consequently he drove his car very carefully. Somewhere between
Cilacap and the Central Java border, there was a sharp curve to the left,
around a huge coral mountain. My brother turned his car carefully around
the bend when suddenly a middle-aged couple on a motorcycle decided to
overtake him on the left. There was not enough space between the car and
the rocky mountain. So, the motorcycle hit the car and they fell down.
My brother stopped the car, got out, helped the couple up and took them
to the nearest hospital. The couple only suffered minor cuts and bruises,
still my brother waited for them in the hospital, to make sure that they
were okay. Such a good lad my brother is. But apparently, later on this
couple asked my brother for a lot of money for various ridiculous reasons.

“Look, I’m not a rich man. I just started my job;
I don’t have a lot of money. And again, it wasn’t actually
my fault that you two fell off your motorcycle, was it? On top of that,
I have been responsible enough to take you two to a hospital and pay for
the medical care,” my brother said.

“Well Mister, we were not the one who drove the car. So
obviously it was your fault and obviously you have more money than we
do, so consequently you have to pay us for this. And, regarding you taking
us to this hospital, well it was your obligation to do so anyway!”
the wife replied. My brother couldn’t stand it anymore; he stuffed
another fifty thousand rupiah bill in her hand and walked away.

I remember an argument I had with a ‘bajaj’ driver
a couple of months back (sorry for one more accident story – I’m
really full of them). The ‘bajaj’ was speeding on a blind
curve and hit my car, which was parked in a safe parking space, and damaged
both the bumper and the back lights on my car. I, of course, blamed the
reckless driver and asked him to be responsible to a degree (thankfully
my car was fully insured – I just wanted to teach the ‘bajaj’
driver a lesson). The ‘Bajaj’ driver replied with the typical
proud litany, basically saying he was poorer than I was. Although he admitted
that he was wrong to be half asleep while driving on a public road; he
shouldn’t have been asked to be financially responsible for the
accident because I was richer than him so I was supposed to fix my car
with my own money. Somebody had rattled my cage.

So I shouted at him, “Who gave you the right to drive recklessly
just because you are poor? You expect you can get away with your acts
of irresponsibility just because you are poor? Do you think I was born
rich? Do you think my car just fell out of a tree? Do you think I didn’t
work for it? Do you think that only people who have money are supposed
to be responsible for their acts?”

All of these stories are pointing to one bit of advice: make
sure that your car is fully insured! No, just kidding. It seems that the
culmination of limited education, distorted social norms and some unknown
missing links have developed an irresponsible attitude within the less
fortunate members of our society – at least to a degree in traffic.
I’m not saying that all the fortunate ones have been responsible
for all of their acts either – to a degree.

So now you know what might happen if a ‘smaller’
traffic user accidentally, or intentionally, scratches your 7 series Beemer.
Your compensation may be that YOU get to pay. But, if you’re not
an Indonesian, please don’t employ my method in the first accident,
especially if you don’t have a local with you. It will only invite
friction amongst the crowds who usually revert to a pack mentality that
only intensifies against so-called ‘rich’ foreigners. Besides,
only Indonesians have the right to be arbitrary in their own country.
Correct me if I’m wrong.